
Game Tips
Game Tips for Warframe
This guide compiles essential tips for Tenno of all skill levels, from fresh recruits to veteran leaders. Tips are organized by category with clear explanations and strategic rationale.
---
Beginner Tips
1. Spend your starting Platinum wisely.
- Tip: Buy Warframe and weapon slots with your initial 50 Platinum. Do not spend it on cosmetics, resources, or rushing build timers.
- Why: Slots are the only essential item you cannot earn for free forever. You need slots to expand your collection; other resources can be farmed quickly.
- When: Use immediately on one Warframe slot (20p) and two weapon slots (12p each) for the best value.
2. Complete the star chart first.
- Tip: Unlock every node on Earth, Venus, Mercury, etc., before diving into endless farming or relics.
- Why: Junctions grant crucial quests, mods, and frame parts. Unlocking nodes also increases your Mastery Rank (MR) and access to better rewards.
- When: Always come back to complete the star chart in order. Do not skip nodes—they connect to harder missions later.
3. Always level a weapon to 30 before selling or using Forma.
- Tip: Each weapon and frame grants Mastery XP only once. Equip new gear and level it to max (level 30) before discarding it.
- Why: Mastery Rank is required to unlock better gear, more daily standing, and increased mod capacity for unranked gear.
- When: After finishing a weapon, either keep it (if you enjoy it) or sell it if MR fodder. Never use Forma on an unmastered item.
4. Join a clan early.
- Tip: Search for a newbie-friendly clan through Recruitment chat or the Warframe forum.
- Why: Clans provide access to essential blueprints (e.g., Dragon Key, many warframes, Archwing launcher) and research labs. Solo building these items takes weeks.
- When: Do this after the first few planets. A good clan will help with resource and mod sharing.
5. Use the Codex and Market to find drop locations.
- Tip: In the Orbiter, use the Codex (left of Navigation) to search for any mod, relic, or blueprint. The Market shows you where to buy or earn items.
- Why: Warframe's wiki is external; in-game data avoids confusion.
- When: Before farming a specific mod or frame, check its drop table to pick the right mission.
---
Combat Tips
#### General Combat
1. Always aim for headshots (or weak points).
- Tip: Many weapons gain bonus critical damage on headshots. Use precise aim with weapons like the Braton or Lato early on.
- Why: Headshot kills drop extra energy orbs and can trigger Combos for more damage. This scales into endgame builds.
- When: Every mission where you are shooting. For melee, aim for a unit's head with slide attacks.
2. Use melee for energy regeneration.
- Tip: Equip the "Energy Siphon" aura mod or use a weapon with the "Energy Generator" arcane. Or simply channel melee kills (if you have the "Hunter Adrenaline" or "Rage" mod).
- Why: Many warframe abilities rely on energy. Hunter Adrenaline converts health damage to energy early game.
- When: When your frame has low energy pool, keep melee near enemies to sustain abilities.
3. Master the movement system (bullet jump).
- Tip: Sprint → Crouch + Jump → Aim Glide. This is your primary mobility tool. Add rolling mid-air for direction changes.
- Why: Warframe is about speed. Bullet jumps maintain momentum, dodge bullets, and help traverse large tilesets quickly.
- When: Practice in the Orbiter or open world. Use it to avoid damage in combat and to parkour through missions.
4. Use the right elemental mods for enemies.
- Tip: Check the enemy faction. Grineer are weak to Corrosive (Electric + Toxin) or Radiation. Corpus weak to Magnetic (Cold + Electric) and Toxin bypass shields. Infested weak to Gas or Heat.
- Why: Elemental damage multipliers can triple your effective DPS.
- When: Always mod your primary weapon for the faction you are fighting. A single 90% elemental mod can be stronger than a flat damage mod.
#### Ability Usage
5. Build for ability synergy.
- Tip: Do not just mod for damage; consider Duration, Efficiency, Range, and Strength according to the warframe's kit.
- Example: For Rhino, Strength and Duration boost Iron Skin and Roar. For Nova, Range and Strength speed up molecular prime.
- Why: Balanced modding makes abilities usable in more situations.
- When: After acquiring basic mods like Streamline (efficiency), Continuity (duration), and Stretch (range).
6. Use crowd-control abilities before reviving.
- Tip: Stomp (Rhino), Bastille (Vauban), or sleep (Equinox) to clear enemies around a downed teammate.
- Why: Reviving without enemies hitting you saves time and prevents death.
- When: Anytime a teammate is down in high-level content. It's safer than face-tanking damage.
#### Stealth
7. Stealth multipliers can XP farm.
- Tip: Kill enemies without being detected using a silent weapon (e.g., bow, throwing knife). Melee finishers from behind give 5x affinity.
- Why: Stealth kills grant bonus affinity per kill, especially if you kill a whole group without alerting others. Ideal for leveling new gear.
- When: Early game on Spy missions or Solo exterminations with Ivara, Loki, or Ash.
---
Exploration & Navigation
1. Always loot containers and lockers.
- Tip: Smash crates with melee or use abilities like Thief's Wit mod to highlight loot. Rare mods and credits often spawn in containers.
- Why: Many blueprints (e.g., for crafting weapons) require common materials like Ferrite or Salvage. Container farming is faster than mission-only drops.
- When: On any mission you are not speedrunning. On defense missions, loot between waves.
2. Use the minimap to find caches.
- Tip: In sabotage or survival missions, the minimap shows hidden rooms. Look for white circular icons—those are caches.
- Why: Caches reward rare mods, relics, and sometimes special weapon parts (e.g., from Lua Sabotage).
- When: Endless missions or when you have a key (e.g., Derelict vaults).
3. Open world resources are time-gated.
- Tip: On Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, and Cambion Drift, certain resources (like Sentient Cores or Fish Parts) are only obtainable at night.
- Why: Nighttime spawns unique enemies and fishing spots. Check world state in your star map.
- When: When you need specific resources for crafting (e.g., Eidolon shards for focus lenses).
4. Complete Maroo's weekly Ayatan hunt.
- Tip: Maroo (in the Relay) offers a weekly mission to find a treasure. The Ayatan sculpture can be sold for Endo.
- Why: Endo is crucial for high-rank mods. This is the best early source of Endo.
- When: Every week after unlocking Mars.
---
Resources & Credits Farming
1. Farm credits on Dark Sector missions.
- Tip: Nodes like Seimeni (Ceres) or Gabii (Ceres) have a bonus credit multiplier. Use a credit booster or Chroma's Effigy for extra.
- Why: Credits are needed for mod fusion, traded items, and building costs. A single run can net 25k credits with booster.
- When: Whenever you are low on credits (common early game).
2. Use the Index for mid-game credits.
- Tip: The Index (Neptune) is a PvE event where you deposit points. Easy mode gives 150k credits per success with a booster.
- Why: Much higher credit per time than normal missions. Risk: enemy level 30+.
- When: After you can handle level 30 enemies. Use Rhino or Mesa for safety.
3. Farm Void Relics on Heiracon (Pluto).
- Tip: This Dark Sector Survival drops relics frequently. Use a Farming frame (Nekros, Khora) to increase drops.
- Why: Relics are the only way to get Prime parts. You need many for ducats or trading.
- When: Always run this for relic stockpile.
4. Extractors for passive resources.
- Tip: Build Titans Extractors (foundry) and deploy them on planets. They farm resources while you are offline.
- Why: Get passive Polymers, Alloy, Salvage without playing.
- When: Unlock extractors after Earth-to-Mars junctions. Deploy on planets you need rare materials (e.g., Plastids on Saturn).
---
Build Optimization
1. Use "Corrosive Projection" as your aura for Grineer missions.
- Tip: This aura strips enemy armor. Pair it with "Growing Power" for ability damage.
- Why: Armor reduction massively increases damage against high-level Grineer.
- When: Any mission with heavy Grineer presence (level 50+).
2. Mod for the 60/60 elemental mods early.
- Tip: Viral status (Cold + Toxin) is the best all-around. Use 60% status chance mods like Pathogen Rounds to proc Viral, which halves enemy max HP.
- Why: Viral damage + Slash procs (from weapons like Braton Prime) can kill even level 100 enemies.
- When: As soon as you get one 60/60 mod, use it on your primary weapon.
3. Forma is your best friend.
- Tip: Use a Forma on a weapon or frame after leveling it to 30. This adds a polarity slot, halving mod drain for certain mod types.
- Why: You can fit more high-rank mods, unlocking true potential. Each forma adds 10 affinity level, so you can level it again.
- When: After you have a well-rounded set of mods and want to invest in a weapon you like.
4. Do not use multiple damage mods of the same type.
- Tip: Base damage mods (Serration, Hornet Strike) and elemental mods stack multiplicatively. Adding a second +damage% like Heavy Caliber is often worse than a 90% elemental.
- Why: Diminishing returns—a single Serration (+165%) is enough; adding another +damage% gives less benefit than elemental multis.
- When: For most weapons, one raw damage mod, one multishot, two elementals, and crit mods (if crit is good) are optimal.
5. Use the Warframe Builder website.
- Tip: Before spending Forma, simulate builds at Overframe.gg or Warframe Builder.
- Why: Avoid wasted resources. See exactly how mods interact.
- When: For any major investment like a prime weapon or warframe.
---
Economy & Trading
1. Use Warframe.market for trading.
- Tip: This third-party site lists current player buy/sell orders for almost every tradable item. Set up a seller profile with in-game name.
- Why: Avoid overpriced Trade Chat scams. Get fair prices.
- When: Before any trade, check the site for median price.
2. Never buy mods from Baro Ki'Teer with ducats unless they are rare.
- Tip: Baro brings mods and weapons every two weeks. Prioritize Primed mods (e.g., Primed Continuity, Primed Pressure Point) over cosmetics.
- Why: Primed mods are huge power boosts and only available from Baro. Cosmetics return frequently.
- When: When you have enough ducats (Prime parts converted) and credits.
3. Farming prime parts for ducats.
- Tip: Use relics in Void Fissures to get forma blueprints and prime parts. Sell common parts for ducats; rare parts for platinum on Warframe.market.
- Why: Ducats are the currency for Baro. Platinum is the premium currency.
- When: Always run fissures when you can. Prioritize relics that contain items in high demand (e.g., Rubico Prime).
4. Sell Syndicate mods and weapons.
- Tip: Max your standing with a syndicate (e.g., Steel Meridian) and sell their exclusive mods for 15-20 platinum each.
- Why: Syndicate items are not farmable elsewhere. New players buy them.
- When: After reaching max rank in a syndicate (rank 5).
5. Riven mods: roll only if you have plenty of Kuva.
- Tip: Use Rivens to boost weak weapons, but never spend hundreds of Kuva rolling a mediocre riven. Instead, sell unrolled rivens for platinum.
- Why: Riven market is volatile. New players can profit by selling veiled rivens (from sorties) for 20-40p each.
- When: After unlocking Sortie access. Sell veiled rivens if you lack resources to reveal them.
---
Advanced Strategies
1. Eidolon Hunting: use a Chroma or Volt.
- Tip: For Teralyst, Gauntylst, and Hydrolyst caps, Chroma's Vex Armor boosts damage and Volt's shield provides critical damage. Use the 111 Amp (Mote Amp) until you farm a better one.
- Why: Eidolons drop Arcanes and Focus. A coordinated squad can cap multiple per night.
- When: After completing The Second Dream quest. Start with Teralyst solo.
2. Profit-Taker (Orb Vallis) build for credit farm.
- Tip: Use a Chroma tank-buff build with a radiation/corrosive damage weapon (e.g., Catchmoon). The Profit-Taker drops credits and debt bonds.
- Why: One run yields ~200k credits plus Toroids .
- When: After reaching rank 5 with Solaris United and having strong weapon.
3. Steel Path: use Shield-gating mods.
- Tip: For level 100+ enemies, build frames like Hildryn or use Mods like Augur Set and Brief Respite to gain shields on ability cast. This grants invincibility frames.
- Why: Shields grant a brief invulnerability. Vital for survival where one hit would kill.
- When: Any Steel Path mission with frame that cannot tank.
4. Railjack: get the void hole tactical.
- Tip: Use vortex avionics (like Void Hole) to group enemies. Then use a Tycho Seeker missile to clear them.
- Why: Fast clearing of crewships and fighters.
- When: Grinding Veil Proxima missions for Quellor parts.
5. Focus farming: stealth runs are best.
- Tip: Use a banshee with Savage Silence augment and a covert lethality dagger on Adaro (Sedna) exterminate. Kill enemies while cloaked for focus points.
- Why: Stealth kills give 5x affinity towards lens capacity. You can max focus daily quickly.
- When: After unlocking Focus from The Second Dream. Use a lens on an item.
---
Quality of Life / Interface Tips
1. Customize the UI scaling.
- Tip: In Options → Interface, set UI scale to 140% for readability. Enable "Show Ability Stats" and "Advanced Tooltips".
- Why: Makes mod stats and ability descriptions clearer.
- When: Immediately.
2. Use the Equipment menu to plan loadouts.
- Tip: Create loadouts for different missions (e.g., "Spy", "Eidolon", "Index"). That includes frame, weapons, companions, and gear items.
- Why: Prevents modding mistakes and saves time.
- When: After acquiring multiple frames and weapons.
3. Mark items on the map for team.
- Tip: Press G (default) to place a waypoint on interesting loot or extraction. Double-tap for danger.
- Why: Helps teammates find caches or avoid traps.
- When: Always in squad play.
4. Buy the atomos blueprint from market.
- Tip: Atomos is one of the best beam secondaries early game. It costs 15000 credits. Build it.
- Why: Its chaining beam melts crowds. Pairs well with any primary.
- When: After completing Earth's boss (Captain Vor).
5. Turn on FPS display.
- Tip: In Options → Video → Show FPS. Also turn off Motion Blur and Depth of Field for clarity.
- Why: Helps spot performance drops.
- When: Always.
---
This guide is not exhaustive. Warframe evolves with every update, but these tips will serve you well from your first mission to your thousandth.*